


Even After All Those Years? (The We Keep Meeting Like This Remix)

by Sadisticsparkle (sadisticsparkle)



Category: Marvel Noir
Genre: M/M, POV Tony Stark, Remix, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Stolen Moments, Temporary Character Death, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Wartime Romance, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadisticsparkle/pseuds/Sadisticsparkle
Summary: Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, from their first goodbye in 1941 to their lastnice to see you againin 1966.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 63
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Remix Exchange





	Even After All Those Years? (The We Keep Meeting Like This Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarthBloodOrange (DepressingGreenie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DepressingGreenie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Even After All Those Years?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22131598) by [DepressingGreenie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DepressingGreenie/pseuds/DepressingGreenie). 



> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3zSKqIZBcxv7Paqv5uggcC?si=FOZ5zKv6TM2rPocm_vimtQ 
> 
> Here's the playlist for the songs referenced on the fic.
> 
> DarthBloodOrange's original was really evocative so i wanted to expand on it.

**Thursday, October 2nd 1941**

_Bubbles rise_

_Like a fountain before my eyes_

_And they suddenly crystallize_

_T_ _o form a vision of you_

Tony lingered in the empty bed. Steve had left a few hours ago, just before dawn broke and birds welcomed the sun, right after the sounds of distant bombs faded. Tony hadn’t even bothered to open his eyes. Why would he? He didn’t want his last memory of Steve to be his broad back disappearing into the night, to never be seen again. How many people had the darkness swallowed already? Would it ever stop?

He wanted to remember Steve’s striking blue eyes and the way they crinkled when he laughed. The way his arms tightened around Tony when they slept and how his kisses rocked Tony’s world. His moans and how he tried to be quiet when they made love, how his hair looked damp with sweat and how silky it was. His blunt, straightforward way of solving problems and how easy it was to rile him up.

He wanted to protect those three weeks of happiness stolen from the clutches of battle. Small moments at the shadow of history in the making, small moments nobody but him would remember. And Steve, if Tony was lucky. If _Steve_ was lucky. And if they were very lucky, so lucky Tony didn’t dare think about it, they would meet again. Tony would ask all the questions he hadn’t had the time to ask — why were Steve’s hands so delicate? Where had he grown up? Had he ever read _Marvels_? Who was waiting for him back home? Would Tony ever see him again?

Tony opened his eyes. It wasn’t the type of questions he could ask. Not when your number could come up at any time. Sun was sneaking into the room — Rhodey would be picking up in no time and he’d be back in the fray, Steve nothing but a memory he could conjure up whenever he was feeling down. Whenever he needed to remember light still existed, that the dawn would still come, just like the birds knew it would.

He smiled. Maybe the birds didn’t sing because dawn had come — maybe they sang so dawn _would_ come.

**Friday, September 7th 1946**

_A rose must remain with the sun and the rain_

_Or its lovely promise won't come true_

_To each his own, to each his own_

_And my own is you_

He couldn’t wait five minutes more when he had been waiting for five years. So he pulled Steve by his lapels and kissed him. He kissed Steve like you could only kiss somebody who you thought lied buried in a nameless grave an ocean away. Steve kissed back like a man being brought back to life.

‘Let’s leave this place,’ Tony said, breathless, once he had had his fill of Steve’s lips. (He’d never have his fill. He’d kiss Steve forever and ever until the universe vanished and all stars were dead.)

‘Right now?’

‘Why wait any longer? Anybody you like back there?’ he said, pointing at the cadre of arrogant officers covered in medals they didn’t deserve and vapid rich women play-acting an awe they didn’t feel.

‘Everybody I need is right here in my arms.’

Tony laughed and his laughter was like somebody else’s laughter. Bubbly, careless.

Happy.

They left the party with the speed and the impunity of two long-lost lovers, not caring about what people thought or whether anybody missed them. They walked through crowded streets and empty alleys ignoring everybody else because tonight was for them. They had been granted a miracle and Tony knew too well it wouldn’t do to waste it. His whole body wanted Steve’s — every time their hands brushed each other, his skin sang and his heart galloped.

They ran up the stairs to Tony’s apartment and if the neighbors heard them, Tony didn’t give a damn. He had Steve and the world had to know. He wanted to get out on the balcony and scream it for everybody in New York to hear — Steve Rogers was alive and he was Tony’s. Tony was alive and he had a chance, so he was going to hold onto it.

They burst into his apartment and then there were more kisses and dances and a whole lot of physical exertion. They got reacquainted with their bodies and noticed the differences time had wrought — a small scar here and there, more gray hair, more wrinkles — with silent reverence. They were marks of the time they had spent apart and Tony swore to himself there’d be no more times like that.

**Tuesday, 17th September 1952**

_But remember darling,_

_till you're home again_

_You belong to me_

_’I love you, Tony. Always will.’_

Tony folded the letter after re-reading it, trying hard not to tear it. There wouldn’t be another letter for quite a while. There never were, when Steve was away and Tony was busy with some adventure or other. When they were lucky, their adventures were one and the same — and Tony loved that, loved to be neck-deep in danger with Steve right by his side, having the time of his life —, but that wasn’t always. Captain America was a very sought-after man and Tony wasn’t selfish enough to deny the world that. And he wasn’t old enough to stay back home, waiting for his sweetheart to come back, dinner ready.

So Steve was away and he was in some forgotten dusty town. Back in the day, it had been a bustling mining town but now it was a collection of ruined buildings and despairing people. There were rumors of mysterious sightings inside the mine and Tony could never resist one of those, especially if they were glowing mysterious sightings. Maybe it was aliens. That could be a good change of pace — even if the locals were convinced the sightings were somehow the work of Communists. Tony didn’t think the Communists would care much about the town, but stranger things had happened.

He put the letter away in the pocket closest to his heart — yes, half a decade of Steve had turned him into quite the sap, but happiness made everybody into a sap so he didn’t feel too bad about it — and went back to the hotel’s lobby. Rhodey and Pepper were waiting for him and adventure was waiting for them all.

**Monday, 9th September 1957**

_Well that'll be the day_

_When you say goodbye_

_That'll be the day_

_When you make me cry_

_You say you're gonna leave_

_You know it's a lie_

_'Cause that'll be the day_

_When I die_

Tony knew that the world was still spinning, that the seas were still raging and that the moon still shone high up in the sky. He knew that people went on with their lives and that winter would follow fall as it always did. That his heart was still beating, that his lungs still worked, that his hands could still build the most amazing futuristic contraptions. He knew all that and yet it didn’t matter.

Steve was gone.

An explosion over the Atlantic, they had said. The Red Skull, a HYDRA remnant with a face that would have worked in _Marvels_ (he had to tell Pepper the comics would have to stop — he didn’t want to see Steve’s face plastered all over town, not now). The Red Skull had forced Steve into an impossible choice and beautiful, gorgeous, stupid Steve Rogers of course had chosen to die. Of course he had chosen to leave Tony behind.

If Tony had been there… if Iron Man had joined Captain America on this mission, Steve would be there, hurt at worst. Maybe Tony would be the dead one, but it wouldn’t matter, because he was a selfish man and he’d rather be dead than alive like this. This wasn’t a life at all. His bed was empty and his home was empty and nothing made sense anymore.

How could it, when Steve was gone? So gone, so irrevocably gone that he didn’t even have a body to bury because Steve belonged to the ocean now. He was lost there, alone. Steve hated being alone, after a childhood with few friends and no family. He had had Tony, for so long — but not long enough, never long enough —, and now he was alone again under the waves. It wouldn’t do. Steve was gone, but he was going to bring him home.

**Sunday, 10th September, 1966**

_How many heartaches must I stand_

_Before I find the love to let me live again_

_Right now the only thing that keeps me hanging on_

_When I feel my strength, ooh, it's almost gone_

The sea always reminded Tony of Steve’s eyes, ironic as it was. He could get lost watching how the sky spilled over the horizon, how the waves moved, just like he had always gotten lost in Steve’s eyes. God, he missed Steve. He was ready to surrender himself to bittersweet memories when somebody screaming from under the deck startled him back to reality.

‘We found something!’ Rhodey was saying.

Tony ran over to the sonar — yes, it was picking up something big. His heart raced and a small voice in the back of his head whispered hopeful, stupid things. _He’s there. You’ve found him. Don’t you feel it?_. Tony bit back his anger. He had thought that so many times before and each time he had been wrong.

‘Fine. Let’s check it out,’ he said.

Pepper put a hand on his shoulder, preemptively comforting him. He knew what they all thought — that this was a fool’s errand, that he was wasting his fortune and his life searching for a man who had been dead for years. And maybe… maybe Steve _was_ dead. Exploded in tiny bits over the Atlantic or resting deep inside the ocean. Tony wasn’t an idiot. They had gotten lucky so many times. Maybe their luck had run out that fateful day in 1957 and Tony was now a widower in all but name. He knew it wouldn’t do to cling to impossible hopes. But dead or alive, he was going to bring Steve home.

His crew had grown efficient and quick through their travels so the submarine was ready in record time. It was a marvel of technology, a revolution in deep ocean exploration and the purest expression of his grief. He climbed inside — he liked the alone time and this was a job he had to do himself — and gave the order to lower him into the dark depths. He couldn’t see anything at first, but then the submarine’s searchlight stumbled upon a twisted mass of metal.

A wreckage. A plane. A flash of blue encased inside a block of ice. First, Tony grabbed the radio.

‘We’ve… we’ve found him. Send in the recovery team.’

Then, he hurled all over the submarine’s pristine floor.

**Monday, 11th September, 1966**

_You don't know how many times_

_I've wished that I had told you_

_You don't know how many times_

_I've wished that I could hold you_

Tony lingered on the empty bed. The recovery team was back but he didn’t dare go out. If he went out, Steve was going to be really dead and his life would really be over. Inside the room, he could pretend it was still uncertainty and not finality. Why couldn’t he wait five minutes more, when he had been waiting nine years? Five minutes more in a world where he and Steve still had a chance? When had he turned into such a coward? He owed Steve this. One last goodbye, one last kiss.

He shambled down the hall, to the room where they were working on Steve’s body. Everybody fell silent when he entered. They all knew the truth of what Tony and Steve had been to each other. They knew how momentous this was for Tony, how his entire existence was being unraveled.

Steve looked asleep on the slab in the middle of the room, like a prince from a fairytale. His hair was gold and his skin unmarred by age or wounds. Tony had seen Steve like that so many times and then Steve would open his eyes and smile and the sun would come up inside the room. But no more smiles now. Just the cold.

He waved at everybody to leave and to their credit, nobody objected. He stood next to Steve and stared. The small voice of hope wouldn’t shut up. Maybe he’d wake up. Nobody knew what hypothermia did to super-soldiers after all. Tony wanted to strangle it, but how could you strangle your own delusions?

‘Goodbye, love,’ Tony said and leaned to give Steve one last kiss.

And then his heart stopped. He was going insane, surely, because he could swear Steve was breathing. He put his ear next to Steve’s chest and there it was, faint, almost gone — a heartbeat. The heartbeat he remembered from countless nights.

‘He’s alive! Quickly, bring somebody to warm him up!’

Rhodey was the first to run into the room, pity written all over his face. ‘Tony, he…’

‘Damn it, Rhodey! Check for yourself! He’s breathing, you idiots.’

Tony couldn’t remember many details afterward. People burst into the room and everything was a confusing mess full of noise and rushed moments that only calmed down when two blue eyes pierced Tony’s own. Then he was holding Steve in his arms. Steve, breathing, warm, gloriously, improbably alive. And to think everybody had wanted him to leave Steve in the ocean, all alone.

‘Hey,’ he said because he didn’t have words that could fit the enormity of what had happened.

‘I love you, Tony,’ Steve said first, with a hoarse voice. ‘I love you and… I wanted… what happened? I know I had to tell you, but…’

He kissed Steve’s brow.

‘Calm down now. I’ll explain later.’

Steve’s eyes narrowed. ‘You look older.’

‘I look distinguished.’

‘ _Tony_.’

He had wanted to stall this. He had wanted to luxuriate in his happiness a bit more before he told Steve about the time they had lost.

‘It’s 1966, love.’

Steve grew very still. ‘1966? But… it was… Why don’t I remember?’

‘You… the plane fell into the ocean. I… we lost you. We thought you were dead. I kept searching for you, but it took… we didn’t find you before.’

‘I’m sorry, Tony.’

It was so much like Steve, to apologize when Tony was the one in the wrong.

‘You’ve got nothing to apologize for. I found you again. Isn’t that all that matters?’

Steve kissed him then, a sweet, slow kiss, full of warmth and love. Tony’s heart soared. Oh, how could he have forgotten how Steve’s lips felt like?

‘Yes. That’s all that matters.’


End file.
